“How could you?” I demand.
And Pierce stares at me with those wide, guileless eyes, like he can’t possibly comprehend why I’m angry or what he’s done wrong. And suddenly, I have the words for what Penthesilea has shielded the world from. This is a boy who has never met a consequence in his life. This is a boy who has been told that he is to die for, to kill for.
This is a dangerous boy poised to become an even more dangerous man.
“She was going to hurt you! I told you, Adina, that you were my choice,” he says insistently. “I knew from the night in the woods that you’d win. You’re smart, you’re talented, why else would you be at Edgewater when you can’t afford it”—fucking dick—“but you were also biting and ambitious and surprising. My mother doesn’t surprise my father. Until today, Leighton never surprised anyone either. Pen wouldn’t surprise me. Pen wouldn’t push me. Pen was predictable. People expected Pen. They always expect people like Pen and me to be together. But the world would see you and me and think that we are so different that we work. You were just a little rough around the edges. You weren’t hungry enough. And Yale really isn’t the place for you. You’ll like Cambridge, I promise. But I knew that the Finish would fix that. And now you’re complete. You changed the game like I changed it. Look at what you’ve done. Esme is dead. Hawthorne… well, don’t worry, we’ll finish that up. Everyone who’s wronged you… this is what being a Remington is. They’ve made you perfect. I’ve made you perfect.” He cups my face in his hands, rubbing his thumbs over the apples of my cheeks, smiling, like I don’t have a gun pressed against his chest.
Complete. Perfect. A finished girl.
“Pen was right,” I whisper, voice cracking. “You do need to be kept in check.”
I cock the gun.
“Wait, wait, Adina, please—”
I look at Graham, and he’s watching me, tears rolling down his cheeks. He looks so heartbreakingly sad, this boy who loved his younger brother so much that he was willing to do anything for him.
I turn back to Pierce, but he’s not looking at me anymore; instead, he’s staring down the stairs, confusion creasing his brow, his mouth dropping into a pout.
“Pen?” he asks.
Penthesilea stands there, one hand grabbing at her bleeding shoulder, the bodice of her dress soaked crimson with blood.
“You’ve always been a terrible shot, you fucking asshole,” she snarls, her face pulled into a grimace.
Pierce takes a wary step down the stairs. My gun is still trained on him and he pauses, to look up at me and smile. “Let me tie up some loose ends, darling.”
Before I can react, he leaps down the rest of the steps, and his beautiful face becomes something ugly and cruel. He growls and raises his hands, wrapping long fingers around Penthesilea’s slim, freckled neck and squeezing tight.
It’s only for a moment though, because then Penthesilea swings her bat at him, knocking him away. Pierce stumbles back so hard that his legs hit the foot of the stairs, and then he cracks his head on the edge of the steps as he falls back. He looks up at her and she stands between his legs, lifting her bat over her head, tall and powerful.
“Pen, what are you doing?” Pierce shrieks.
“What needs to be done,” Penthesilea snarls. “Do you know what you do to a rabid animal, Pierce? You put it down.”
She swings her bat, making a deep guttural sound, and it collides with the hard cartilage of Pierce’s knee with a sickening crack. Then she raises her bat up high and I know there will be no stopping her.
“My entire life, I’ve been trapped by your family.” She brings the bat down on his shoulder and Pierce grunts, rolling. Graham lunges forward with a cry, but I grab him, wrenching him back, with no care for my ankle. Penthesilea kicks Pierce until he’s on his side. “By your promises.” She brings the bat down again on his stomach. “By you!” His hip. “By everyone’s fucked-up expectations.” His wrist as he reaches out for Graham. Graham jerks in my hold but I shove him against the stairs, and I ignore the betrayal carved into his face, turning back to Penthesilea. “You have made my life into blood sport!” She brings the bat down on his head. “Never again, Pierce. I’m tired, I’m tired, I’m tired!” She chants over again, punctuating each repetition with another hit. Her roars swell into a terrible sound until finally she looks at the gore covering her wood, and then at the caved-in face of Pierce Maxwell Remington IV, and she sobs. Snot and tears fall from her face, mixing into Pierce’s blood as she collapses.
For a moment I don’t know what to do. And then Graham makes a wretched sound too, and he slides down the steps, nearly careening into the wall. He grabs Pierce’s body, and I can just make out his cry: “Four!”
I take one step down the stairs, groaning when I feel my ankle nearly give. I grab harder at the banister, keeping a steady grip on the gun. Another step. Again. Until I’m past Graham mourning his monster of a brother. I near Penthesilea and she blinks, finally turning toward me. She lifts her bat again, still weeping, arms shaking.
Before she can land a hit, I grab the bat, fingers squishing through hot blood, holding tight. Penthesilea makes a shuddery sound of surprise. I tear the wood from her grip and toss it down the staircase. The bat clatters on the hardwood floor and rolls to a stop in the middle of the foyer, right in front of the door. I grab Penthesilea by the face, dragging her close, pressing her forehead to mine. She stares at me with glassy eyes, and I can feel the heat of her breath against my mouth.
“I… I… I… What did I do? I have nothing left,” Penthesilea weeps.
I tremble, feeling her clammy cheeks under my fingertips. I want to shake her. I want to reassure her. I want to make this never have happened.
And all I can say is: “You win.”
Penthesilea shatters.
I let her go and continue down the stairs.
I give Penthesilea Bonavich one last look, committing her to memory. She is the final shot of a beautiful film, as she falls to her knees with a heavy thud and crawls toward Graham and Pierce. She tugs the bloody mess of Pierce’s corpse from Graham’s weak arms and holds him to her chest, wailing, the delicious pink of her dress now drenched in blood. He is the worst person in her life. But for a long time he was one of the only people in her life. He was probably the first boy she ever loved. He was her future, even if that future was a prison, and I think that might be what she grieves. Now, both our futures end in a question mark. For her sake, I hope she finds an answer, but I know she won’t in the body of her dead, emotionally abusive boyfriend.
I don’t look at Graham, because if I do, I’ll have to look at Pierce, and I refuse to feel sad when looking at someone like him.
And then I run, flying through the door on my messed-up ankle, stuttering over the front steps, tripping over them, until I practically crawl across the driveway, toward the lawn.
Stumbling onto the grass, I fall to my knees.
Free.
I kneel in the grass for God knows how long, pressing my face into the green, wheezing. I sit up on my haunches, staring up into the sky and gasping for fresh air, unsure of what to do next. The sky seems bluer now. The world seems quieter. I want to sleep for a thousand years. There is only me, and no one else.